The Sound of Holding Your Breath

The residents of The Sound of Holding Your Breath could be neighbors, sharing the same familiar landscapes of twenty-first-century Appalachialake and forest, bridge and church, cemetery and garden, diner and hair salon. They could be your neighborsaverage, workaday, each struggling with secrets and losses, entrenched in navigating the complex requirements of family in all its forms. Yet tragedy and violence challenge these unassuming lives: A teenage boy is drawn to his sisters husband, an EMT searching the lake for a body. A brother, a family, and a community fail to confront the implications of a missing girl. A pregnant widow spends Thanksgiving with her deceased husbands family. Siblings grapple with the death of their sister-in-law at the hands of their brother. And in the title story, the shame of rape ruptures more than a decade later. Accidents and deaths, cons and cover-ups, abuse and returning veteransNatalie Sypolts characters wrestle with who they are during the most trying situations of their lives.